309 Another Story
William’s inquiry led to Floral plunging into a protracted silence. It was evident that she didn’t wish to divulge anything about her past. At the very least, she didn’t desire to discuss how she attained her current might.

However, judging from the empire envoys’ demeanor towards her, this woman undoubtedly didn’t rely on the Astral Laws to ascend to the Divine Realm. And now that the magic advancement system was monopolized by the Astral Council, there were only a few ways to achieve this—and they were more or less besmirched by taboos and peril.

William hesitated momentarily before exhaling.

“Reveal what you can without impeding the next phase of your objective. Frankly, I’m not intrigued in knowing anything else, but this concerns the survival of Ravenwood. If you care about Ravenwood so much, I don’t believe you’re the sort of person who can’t grasp the magnitude of the situation, right?”

As William spoke, he extracted the ancient black soul box from his inventory under the other party’s astounded gaze.

!!
“This is the soul box Ebony professed to have given me as compensation… Even though I’m certain it’s Nehe’s soul box from more than a millennium ago, I’ve always harbored reservations that it contains his soul. And now, if I’m not mistaken, this object contains your soul, correct?”

William’s words elicited a slight tremble in the other party. This confirmed his conjecture. He continued, “You previously declared to have a pact with the Lady of Starvation and hoped that I could aid you in completely withering the core of the World Tree… Let me guess. The legacy left behind by Nehe must be inseparable from the Lady of Starvation, right?”

Floral was as silent as an ice sculpture standing in the hall.

The reason why William arrived at this deduction was simple.

Since Steelheart Widow claimed that Nehe was deceased, he must be dead. It was inconceivable for him to have left behind a soul box for a possibility of revival. Though William retained a glimmer of hope, he had to relinquish this illusion after confirming that the Holy Tree Matriarch Ebony mentioned was the Lady of Starvation from another timeline.

Aside from Nehe, the only potent lich he knew of was the individual standing before him.

After a brief interval, she fixed her gaze on the soul box and uttered, “This is because the records Lord Nehe left behind aren’t complete. The following narratives are amalgamated versions my… adoptive parents pieced together based on information and factual historical events. I cannot vouch for their accuracy, and they should be of no aid in resolving the current situation.”

“I require you to finish before I can determine whether it’s beneficial in resolving the current situation,” William replied.

Even though she didn’t require it, Floral inhaled deeply.

“Very well… What I can affirm now is that it transpired two years subsequent to your ascension.”

…

The commencement of the tale was more or less identical to the rendition Ebony recounted to William.

In the 880th year of the Platinum Calendar, two years after William’s ascension, the entire Vic Continent was in chaos. The two chieftains of Ravenwood perished inexplicably on the same day.

To renew their pledge to the World Tree, the Reformists in Holy Tree City sought out the surviving Judge, Frost Lich Nehe, to aid them in revamping the Forest Elves’ ancient customs.

However, what differed from Ebony’s account was that the Reformists’ compensation wasn’t for restoring his status as a forest druid, but proffered his phylactery in exchange.

Or to be more precise, the Reformists leveraged Nehe’s phylactery as a threat to coerce the erstwhile Judgment hero into collaborating with their scheme.

“Wait, where did those individuals obtain the phylactery… Are there any records?” William interjected and inquired.

William always found it peculiar how the phylactery was retrieved. No one, other than him, should be privy to the phylactery’s ultimate whereabouts. Even if someone chanced upon it, it couldn’t have been a mere coincidence for it to fall into their possession.

Floral shook her head, but this didn’t imply that there were no records.

“Although it’s purely speculative, my adoptive parents surmised that acquiring Mr. Nehe’s phylactery was the genesis of everything… The Ravenwood Reformists assassinated those two leaders after procuring the phylactery and verifying that they could manipulate Mr. Nehe, propelling the situation to an irreversible juncture.”

In other words, the predicament commenced with the unearthing of Nehe’s soul box. It could be stated that this was a replica of Nehe’s personal narrative back then—in that case, the issue should lie with the soul box itself.

William nodded and motioned for the other party to continue.

After the Moon Realm crisis back then, the two ancient deities, the Holy Tree Matriarch and the Father of the Wilderness, entered into an eternal slumber. They couldn’t intervene via their personas and could only instinctually respond to the devotion of their adherents. Eventually, the Forest Elves should have been capable of developing a more manageable transcendental system that perpetuated their faith as the cornerstone.

However, the so-called Reformists were the most conservative in a sense. They aspired to reawaken the two deities through a ritual that recreated the past and perpetuate the Forest Elf system of yesteryear.

Naturally, this was only superficial. The underlying rationale was presumably that during the era when the Moon Realm was entirely sealed off from Currere, the Lady of Starvation, who had a contingency plan, aimed to utilize Ravenwood as a trump card to inaugurate the infiltration and corruption of Currere again.

Of course, She didn’t dare to do so overtly back then. Otherwise, She would have become the target of public censure in the Moon Realm while the other sovereigns were incarcerated outside. Furthermore, Ravenwood lacked sufficient fuel to alter the timeline back then.

40 million aged souls should have crossed the critical threshold only a millennium later.

Therefore, Her ultimate objective was presumably to supplant Her consciousness with the will of the World Tree and indirectly govern Ravenwood. After all, the World Tree was Her arboreal form when She was still mortal.

“Mr. Nehe was partly coerced and partly deceived into joining that reform. Even if someone from the Oak Council attempted to pilfer the core of the World Tree with the hope of mutual destruction, they ultimately couldn’t impede all of this.”

“But the Lady of Starvation’s scheme failed in the end. Why? Is it due to Nehe eventually uncovering the truth and doing everything in his power to halt it?” William queried.

Floral shook her head and uttered, “Mr. Nehe only discerned the truth after everything was settled. At that time, his soul was on the brink of dissipating. Prior to that, he was embroiled in the entire ritual and had entered the other timeline. However, oddly, the Lady of Starvation didn’t utilize the power gained from that ritual to attempt projecting Her consciousness into this timeline. Instead, She opted to employ that power to push Mr. Nehe to the brink of death.

“Perhaps Her animosity towards Judgment was more vital than Her control over Ravenwood.”

After all, the Void Sovereign had an infinite amount of time to deal with Currere. However, if She didn’t seize the opportunity to eliminate the mortals who obstructed Her path, they might eventually die of old age.

Floral and her adoptive parents arrived at this conclusion.

William didn’t concur, but he couldn’t conceive of any other explanations. He persisted in questioning, “Did the records he left behind detail how he entered another timeline?”

Floral shook her head and said, “The records of that ritual are exceedingly vague. They only allude to the notion of time fragmentation. Nonetheless, what’s certain is that recreating the ritual of the initial contract with the World Tree is unequivocally one way. Aside from that… He seems to have vaguely hinted that compared to the body, the resistance from employing memories and souls to traverse timelines is much lower.”

William nodded and said, “That’s correct. This is also what I intend to do.”

Floral gazed at William in bewilderment.

“The treeified Forest Elves in Ravenwood are the soul box, and their souls are linked to the undead through dreams.”

William pondered as he hefted the soul box in his palm and articulated,

“But you’ve detached your soul from your body from the outset. In other words, if we can locate the Forest Elf masquerading as you and substitute her soul with yours, we might be able to transition to another timeline organically. After all, your body is in another timeline… Of course, it’s merely a notion. It may not come to fruition.”

William wasn’t certain if this concept was accurate, but it was worth a shot.

“But… there are over 40 million treeified elves in Ravenwood,” Floral’s eyes widened as she disclosed.

“But not many souls are as strong as yours, right?” William replied.

The other party reacted immediately. “It’s those tree spirits…”
“That’s correct. It’s the tree spirit of the giant tree.”